Inspired by betting pools, which bring people together to share bets in common, the platform allows users to create their own groups. “We want this to be a meeting point for friends and for them to have fun without worrying about being in a toxic environment, which can cause addictions or the loss of great amounts,” says the entrepreneur.
It will not be necessary to pay to access Hit – and any visitor will be able to view the contents and make comments, for example – which will have 73 tournaments spread across Brazil and abroad, with a focus on Latin America. As a result of this strategy, the startup expects to reach approximately 2.5 million users by the end of this year (but without revealing the possible revenue).
For Thiago Martins Machado, after consolidating Hit in the Brazilian market, the objective is to launch the platform in other countries. “That's why we created a structure with strict compliance rules and structured to operate in most international markets,” says the founder. And, to avoid fraud and money laundering, financial market risk indicators were adopted.
“Our intelligence is ready to identify situations such as frequent losses or deposits with values outside a certain standard. If this happens, we have specialized professionals who get in touch with the user to understand if there is something wrong,” says Machado. If there is any inconsistency or suspicion, the competent bodies are automatically activated.
Betting market
There are around 450 betting sites in the country, according to Hit. To give an idea of the size of this sector, the ten largest companies invested around US$75.7 million in advertising in the first half of last year alone – six times more than the same period in 2020 –, according to Ibope Monitor. In Brazil alone, the market moves (US$ 8.6bln) per year.
With an estimated growth rate of around 40% between 2019 and 2020, the betting industry generated around US$59.6 billion globally in 2020, according to data from Grand View Research. With an estimated increase of 10.1% each year, the forecast is that the market could reach US$127.3 billion in 2027.
As one of the main risk factors is the informality of the sector, which already represents more than R$27 billion (US$ 5.25bln) here - the United Nations (UN) says that illegal betting totaled something around US$1 trillion globally in 2021. From According to Brazil’s Legal Gaming Institute (IJL), the regulation would bring R$20 billion (US$ 3.9bln) in taxes and would formalize 450 thousand jobs.
Source: Exame
